The Three Rules
by AndSoForeverAfter
Summary: We had three basic rules to keep Berk safe and the world from turning upside down. 1. Always capture the dragon if you have a chance. If we keep the contained, we have a shot of surviving 2. Kill if you absolutely have to protect the village and 3. Never, ever, let a dragon get near the mainland. Unfortunately, that last one has gotten harder and harder to do on our own. Modern!AU
1. Chapter 1

_This is Berk_

_Just off the Canadian shore, it's a little place that Nova Scotia wouldn't claim, Newfoundland won't admit exist, and New Brunswick is ashamed to be associated with. _

Computer monitors blinked rapidly as they were booted up. Out of date, out of style, and almost out of storage capacity, they were dancing on their last life, but still effective. The surveillance centre was manned by a small group of teens, bumbling around and mashing buttons as if they knew what their intended uses were.

_The weather here is brutal, icy and cold and the people, even more so._

"Hurry up! We're behind already and they could easily show up before we get the systems running." The unofficially leader of the surveillance team, a small, athletic blond in well worn sneakers and a teal zip up, had taken to shouting orders and her unwilling peers. There'd been a case strapped to her back that she'd abandoned at the door. At first glance, one might assume it to be for some custom guitar, but the villagers of Berk were all to familiar for her fondness of that well used battle axe hidden inside.

The only other girl, a tall blonde, was slouched back in a computer chair, her feet on the desk as she idly played with a keyboard on her lap. "Relax Astrid, it's been storming all day, there's never an attack in this kind of weather, even they aren't stupid enough to be out in the lighting."

Astrid grumbled under her breath. "And where's Tuffnut?"

"Just 'cuz they're not stupid enough to be outside doesn't mean he isn't." She pointed to the only window where a gangly boy, her twin, ran around some sort of trap that had been set up the day before. "He's been tryin' to set it off all day."

_Now on a good day, Berk is quiet, to say the least. Our internet loads at a speed that would make most people cry, our cellphones rarely get a good signal if the weathers bad, and if you wanted to leave and do something, the ferry to the mainland only made two trips a week, Saturday morning, and returned Sunday night._

One of the boys took the gutsy move to distract the now disgruntled blonde as she tried to get everything in order. He coyly tried to wrap an arm around her shoulders, in his best "sauve" voice he began, "So, Astrid-"

"Not now Snotlout. Either watch your monitor or get out," she said sharply, twisting his arm until he pulled around.

_Now, most people would leave, move to the mainland or into the cities like Halifax, Toronto, Montreal, maybe even farther, but not us. No, not the Berkians. You see, we're the last of a norse tribe that settled on this infernal island long before the Irish, the French and the Scots took over the rest of the region. We settled here, in the open waters among several uncharted islands, and we defend it with no intent of ever going anywhere. We're like vikings, we have stubbornness issues. _

"Um Astrid, we're short a camera," the largest boy announced nervously, his large hands typing anxiously on the keyboard as he tried absolutely everything he knew how to get the stream running live once again.

"Where's it located?"

"The east end of the island." He was about to freak out, she could tell. "I think it's blocked by another feed somehow."

"That's where they'll come first. Can't you override what's shutting it down some how?"

He shook his head. "There's only three people that have the override passwords, since nobody thought it'd be a good idea to-"

"Who has them Fishlegs?"

"Stoick, Gobber, and..."

She groaned. "Hiccup. Of course. Snotlout, where is he?"

With utter disgust, her admirer scoffed at the idea. "How should I know? I'm not his babysitter!"

She then turned to the other girl. "Ruffnut, did you see him leaving when you came?"

Ruffnut rolled her eyes. "How should I know? I've got real problems to worry about."

"Like?"

From outside, the teens could hear the loud, pained screams of Tuffnut, who had managed to set off his trap. "I'm hurt, I'm hurt! I am very much hurt!"

Her eyes not leaving the window, Ruffnut laughed wholeheartedly. "Well for one, I woulda missed that looking for that toothpick! Ah man, he's gonna have to get his nose reset again!"

The wildlife here are something not to be desired.

"Does no one care that we are missing our most important camera feed right now?" Astrid had to avoid shouting as she ripped her phone from her pocket, madly dialling an unfortunately familiar number.

"Hello?" the voice on the other end of the phone asked anxiously.

"Hiccup! Where are you?"

He fought back a squeak. "Astrid, hi Astrid, um, Gobber's shop, why are you calling me." _Smooth. Very smooth._

_That's me. I'm Hiccup. You can laugh, but believe me, when it comes to names, I could have done a lot worse. This is Berk after all, they don't exactly buy baby books from Wal-Mart like the rest of the country. No, parents give there children names that will strike fear into the hearts of our enemies. Quite frankly, I don't think our current enemies would understand. You see..._

"You're on camera duty tonight."

_Crap._ "Right, right, I'll be over in like, two minutes."

"I need you hear ten minutes ago, our main camera is down. Fishleg needs the override," she snapped.

"Override... Right, the override, I'll be right there, I just got caught up working on-"

She'd already hung up.

He shoved through the door of the shop, throwing a satchel full of metal workings over his bony shoulder.

_The pest on Berk aren't quite like other places. They're actually the reason that the other provinces attempt to dissociate themselves from us._

The storm has stopped, but the ground was soggy and slick, his sneakers slipping and sliding around as he struggled to keep his balance. Just his luck, he'd lost his footing and landing flat on his back. He pulled himself up quickly and continued to run, mud dripping down the back of his coat. As if he hadn't already made a lovely impression on his peers with his tardiness.

"—the storm's been heading west, meaning that the the storm is moving away from them, they could have taken off as soon as it passed over head." Fishlegs was explaining anxiously as Hiccup entered, his hands playing with the drawstrings of his pullover.

"So there's still a chance there'll be an attack?"

Fishleg swallowed. "Based on patterns and past attacks, there's at least a 58% chance, but with the lack of attacks in the last two weeks, that's increased to 69%, and if you account for them figuring out the surprise attack—"

"Fishlegs!" Hiccup yelled over the panicking. "What computer is out?"

The last on the left. Of course. The only view of the eastern seaport, the others were destroyed in previous attacks. Override codes in… and… "The camera's gone."

The colour drained form Astrid's face. "What do you mean, the camera's gone."

He tapped the screen. "There's absolutely no feed because there's no camera. The tracking device in it has is out of reach. It's… Gone…?" A camera can't just disappear.

_Most places have problems with rats, others with mosquitoes, but us, we have-_

"Someone took it out," she said flatly, blue eyes wide with shock.

"Or ate it."

"Why would someone eat a camera?" One of the twins asked.

He wanted to be wrong, but within two seconds, there it was, the familar screeching and roars.

_Dragons._

Without a second thought, Astrid shoved her peers out of the way to sound the alarm, if the screeching hadn't already alerted most of the village. She pulled the axe from it's case and gestured for the rest of the teens to follow suit, except for— "Hiccup!"

"Um, yes?" He knew where this was going.

"Get to the shop and set off the alarms for the mainland."

_Of course, the mainland. The cowering, unaware civilians who had been kept in the dark about the dragons since they first started appearing, eight generations ago. Sure, everyone has heard the myths, folklore down the Miramichi River, myths and sightings off the chest of Cape Breton, but all except for government officials ad the military have no idea that the stories are true. It's probably for the best, the last thing Berk needs is a bunch of wannabe heroes and knights toting big guns and weaponry that they smuggled across the boarder, or hunters seeking out the most exciting pray._

The villagers scrambled around as the attack went into full spring. A few had taken hoses to extinguish flaming buildings. Others had donned battle axes and stun guns. All large, all shouting, all knocking out and wrestling whatever dragons they could contain, Hiccup struggled to wave his way in and out of the crowd, ducking under arms, ignoring shouts for him to get inside. Clearly, he was trying. Why had Gobber built the alarm system on the complete opposite side of the village?

_A missile can't take out a dragon, a bullet can't pierce it's scales, arrows couldn't make a scratch, and a tranquilizer only last for about ten minutes. We've learned all of this the hard way. Instead, we've gone back to the ways of our supposedly might ancestors, with bolas, hammers, axes, swords, whatever hand to hand weapons you could find._

"Hiccup!" A familiar voice boomed, a large hand grabbing the boy by the back of his muddy jacket. "What are you doing outside?"

_That's our leader, Stoick. A man so brave, so strong, so… Viking-ish that the villagers have taken to calling him chief instead of mayor. Once when he was a baby, they say he captured a nadder without putting down his toy sword, and do I believe it? Yes I do._

"Going, I'm going, the east end cameras down, need to go set the alarm."

He dropped the boy and shoved him off in the direction of the workshop. "Go, before the marines show up an start to meddle, we have this under control!"

_It was Stoick that put in place our most very basic rules for handling dragons and dealt with the outsiders. Number one, always capture the dragon if you have a chance. Number two. Kill if you absolutely have to protect the village and Number three, never, ever, let a dragon get near the mainland. Unfortunately, that last one has gotten harder and harder to do._

**Hello, thank you for reading! I hope to update this once every few days, especially once my school year ends in a few weeks. I'd love to hear what you think, and I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I'm enjoying writing it.**

**Oh, as for the exact location, Berk is set somewhere in the open water between Newfoundland and New Brunswick. When trying to find a region in North America with a similar climate to what Hiccup describes as Berk, it seems the maritimes are quite similar. Other than the places I've googled or visited years ago, I'm not completely familiar with the region, so if anyone has any experience and could help me with a few little locational details, I'd be more than happy to accept it. ****Again thanks so much for reading! Hope to see you again next chapter, haha!**


	2. Chapter 2

"Log in… Log in… Please log in, please—"

"Login accepted, welcome Hiccup Haddock, how may I be of service?" the robotic voice asked flatly.

The alarm system he and Gobber had designed years ago was certainly better than these hand-me-down systems the government had so kindly supplied in their best efforts to help the tiny village. Sure, it hadn't been able to run off the systems that the military did, but it was fast and reliable. These antiques could hardly run the live feeds needed for reporting incidents.

"Connect to the server, I need to talk to the general."

"Right away Mr. Haddock."

And there it was, the lovely sound of the connection dialling up. In the middle of a battle that's exactly the noise you wanted to hear.

On the second monitor stats began flooding in. A headcount of the beasts found and captured in the latest raid.

"Hiccup! Good ta see ya lad!" The monitor blinked on, the pixelated face of the representative on the other end appearing behind the dirty screen. "How's your dad doin'?"

Was he really going to start this now? "My dad's fine Officer Walker, but—"

"Ah, good ta here, always worry 'bout the poor guy, without Val and—"

"Officer? Kind of important call here," Hiccup interrupted as he began to send off the data, "Chief says no military interference, we've got this under control."

"Yeah does he now? Didn't one of his soldiers take out his own catapult last week?"

It's best he doesn't know who exactly knocked out the catapult.

Hiccup sighed.

"Oi, that was you again lad, wasn't it? Well, I'm gonna—"

The phone started blaring off the hook, the light next to Mechanic Shop blinking rapidly as it sought for attention.

"I'm gonna let you go Walker," was all he said before the officer signed off and he picked up the phone.

Gobber of course, on the other end, was in no sort of mood for chitchat, demanding, "I need ye down here, I can't handle the work I'll be myself!"

"I'm on my way downstairs, just give met a second—"

"Ye haven't got a second."

_I've been Gobber's apprentice for as long as I can remember. Every kid as part of school takes on some sort of mentor, and at the suggestion of the chief, I was sent to work in the mechanic shop, in hopes that it might kick my habit of creating things that just caused problems for Berk. This of course failed._

As gracefully as ever, he tripped his way down the spiral staircase towards the shop.

"Yer missin' the party," Gobber said flatly as he pointed to the pile of dull swords building up on the table, "Now get ta work b'fore ye try and do somethin' crazy."

"Something crazy?" the boy scoffed as he began his work, "Like I would do anything crazy."

"Well there is that contraption of yers ye want ta take out."

The newly designed catapult looked like he'd pulled it right out of a sci-fi movie, sleek metal and moulded plastic instead of tradition wood, Faster, stronger, fireproof, and as Gobber quickly learned when he accidentally set it off, horribly calibrated. The weighted net that it fired off shoot through the shop window, wrapping Grugnut Thornston in it's tight embraced.

"Hey, that's going to work, it just needs a little fine tuning! This thing right here is going to make my life infinitely better! It's going to catch that dragon, it's going to impress the village, and I just might get a date." Hiccup had abandoned his blades to reset the device, reloading it with a new net.

"Eh, I'm sure that Hofferson girl's noticed ye enough after that catapult incident." Gobber paused, waiting for the boy to get flustered, only to realize what else had been said. He raised an eyebrow. "And just what dragon is that."

_We've managed to almost catch at least one of every type of dragon that has ever attacked Berk. First graders have taken down Terrible Terrors, last week a group of middle schoolers captured their first Deadly Nadder with the help of a teacher, while the adults were generally responsible for the Gronkles, the Hideous Zipplebacks, and the Monsterous Nightmares._

_Yes, we really are as good at naming our deadly beast as we are at naming children._

_But out of all the dragons we've caught, catalogued, and studied, there's one that we've never been able get our hands on. No one has ever seen it, it never steals livestock, never touches our houses or our security systems. It comes, takes the large catapults, and leaves. The problem? It never misses. We call it the—_

"Night fury!" one of the villagers screamed.

"Get down!" another replied.

Clearing his throat, Hiccup proudly announced. "That one."

"Oh no ye don't! Yer stain' put, right here." Gobber had already started turning for the door. "They need backup if there's a night fury on the loose, get them swords done b'fore I get back! And afta, get that thing outta the shop b'fore ye hurt someone else!"

The electronic latch to the door clicked shut as he hobbled out, trapping his apprentice inside unless he was willing to crawl out the window... Which he was usually willing and able to do.

_Catching the notorious Night Fury would mean permanent status and adoration here in Berk. And as a high school student, that's the only thing that matters. Each student in our grade had at least some sort of claim to fame already. Ruffnut and Tuffnut, the twins who shared half a brain between the two, had taken out a Zippleback with two only ropes while fighting with each other, Snotlout was in the runnings for top capture rates on the island, even against adults. Fishlegs had categorized and researched everything from the past on every dragon we'd ever seen, Astrid... Oh, right, she had been the youngest person ever to singlehandedly take down and capture a full grown Gronkle, and then a Nadder, and even a Monstrous Nightmare. When you're trying to impress a girl- I mean, peers like that, you've got to do something big, something completely out of this world._

Like capturing the Night Fury.

Hiccup grumbled to himself as he sharpened sword after sword, all by hand on the manual stone wheel. There were automatic ones, everyone knows they exist, if only someone might actually think to send them where swords are still used on a near daily basis. But, no, Berk didn't need things that made sense, they needed illogical, out of date electronics and machinery, unfunctioning equipment, everything that could make their difficult lives harder.

If he could get behind the Ingerman's grocery store unnoticed with his new bola catapult, he'd have a clear shot of the night fury's usual strikes, a perfect view of both major watchtowers that he, or she, loved to take down on a near weekly basis. His catapult was twice as fast as anything they'd designed before, he'd tested and clocked it time and time again, the numbers didn't lie. He needed a good excuse to get-"

"-Out of here, they need some more hands bringing in that Nightmare of Hofferson's." Stoick was standing in the window rapping on the frame to get his attention.

_And there might be someone else I have to live up to._

"Alright Dad, just get Gobber to let me out, I'll find a way over."

He ran when Gobber unleashed him, dragging the new machine behind him, avoiding the watching eyes of his elders. The dragons might have either been captured or fled back to their own island, but it wouldn't hurt to get set up for the next fight. The lights around the grocery store were all shut down to deter the dragons but the now starting up streetlights offered some help, if you ignored the eerie shadows they cast on the old stone buildings.

He normally didn't mind the shadows, but that night, one in particular was a bit out of place. It was cast over what remained of the watchtower, and… It moved, completely independent of the light source… It was alive, sitting proudly, almost smugly, on the ruins, it's green eyes locked defiantly… It was…

"Night fury—" he gasped, quickly preparing to shoot, "This is my shot, this is my—"

It started to take off in a panic, but in it's futile attempts to manoeuvre through the debris from the battle gave his hunter the perfect shot.

And he took it.

The bola shot through the air like a bullet, and to his good fortune—

"It hit! I did it! I captured the night fury! I did it!" He cheered, running over to where the beast had been.

"Hiccup! We need some help over here!"

He starred down into the valley in the centre of the island . "Just give me a minute Fishlegs!" he shouted, before whispering curiously, "but where did you go?"


	3. Chapter 3

The Nightmare struggled and fought as it was lead to the dragon sanctuary, if you could call it that. Researchers buzzed around it curiously, estimating it's size and weight, taking notes on it's colour, gender, physical health, whatever they could gather as they watched. God forbid they offer any help in containing the beast.

The Nightmare, a red male, squired restlessly, pulling so hard that he flipped the teens onto their stomachs.

"Snotlout! You're leading, keep him steady!" Astrid shouted in frustration.

Snotlout rolled his eyes as he tried to haul the dragon back down. "It's not my fault Hiccup isn't holding his own weight! I can't keep the entire right side down by myself!"

"His own weight is about all Fishbone's can hold down," one twin whispered to the other, who clearly didn't get the joke and laughed anyway.

"Snotlout-" Fishlegs had tried to cut in, only to be cut off by the dragon reeling and fighting to break free.

_While the dragons have been attacking Berk since long before we'd settled here, outsiders being involved was something completely new within the last four or five decades. Apparently vicious Berkians acting like the vikings of the past in the dragon war simply wasn't enough chaos for the little island. Capture rates had to be increased by massive amounts to meet the research needs, which meant less and less of the free space on the already small island could be used by the residents, most of it becoming part of the so-called "sanitary," Dragon Jail was what we'd called it as kids. _

_Quite frankly, we were better off on our own._

"This is the biggest one yet! Can you imagine the shot limit that he might have?" One of the scientist asked eagerly. She was a younger woman in her late twenties or so, still as chipper about her job as an intern.

The grumpy older man, Dr. Winslet shook his hand, roughly scratching his pen against the sheets on his clipboard. "Size has no effect on a dragon's shot limit," he said flatly, his eyes never leaving his board, "the firepower though is going to be something worth studying. Anything this size should have been able to take down a little hovel town like this with a matter of minutes. Between it's tail and it's ability to ignite itself, Berk shouldn't have stood a chance."

"Then why didn't it destroy us? Why did the dragon go easy on us?" It was Hiccup who had interrupted, his attention locked on the scientist who had no intentions of answering him.

Winslet scoffed. "Why how would I know boy? He's a dragon, they don't have any proper thinking capabilities, as stupid as pups really, perhaps he simply doesn't know how strong he really is. You ask too many questions lad." He sighed as he began to search the sanctuary. "Where on Earth is that girl? She's supposed to have opened it's gate by now."

As if she'd heard, a dark-haired teen girl came running from the office building, fumbling through a small stack of specialized keycards. "Just give me a minute! The board called!"

Of course, Winslet was far from impressed, saying, "You can't find a good intern anywhere these. Heather, we've got a massive-"

"I know, I know, but the board-"

"Can wait until we have this foul beast caged and sedated!"

Heather discontentedly grumbled to herself as she finally opened the gate. A shoot form above dropped a large pile of fish near the back wall, and like a happy little golden retriever pup, the nightmare rushed towards it. The teens quickly dropped the ropes, years of experience had made this second nature. He began to stuff his face like he hadn't eaten in years. His fish was gone within seconds, but before he could turn to run, the gate closed in behind him. Sad, puppy dog eyes starred through the great, replacing those of the fearsome dragon that had been able to destroy their entire village only half an hour ago.

Just like the...

"Night Fury could have..." Hiccup mumbled under his breathe. "Well, now that's all settled, I've got to be going, Gobber's not going to make all those weapon repairs on his own."

The other teens hadn't paid much notice, already absorbed in their discussions of just how powerful the beast could be. Snotlout had begun his triumphant capture of the Nightmare, and if his ongoing descriptions of his unbending masculinity wasn't an excuse to slip away right there and then, what was?

He had just barely made it to the gate when he was stopped by a young woman's voice calling his name. Heather had run to catch up with him, her oversized lab coat slowly slinking down her shoulders as she did. "I need a huge favour," she said pleadingly.

"What is it?"

"My dad and I need to talk to your father, alone, but Dr. Winslet is determined to keep us here at the sanctuary most days." She bit her lip. "It's really, really important to my father, but you can't tell anyone," she insisted, "I can't tell you anything, but, you trust me, don't you?"

The answer would have to be yes. Out of all the foreigner scientist on the island, Heather and her parents were the only two that would have willingly be allowed by the people of Berk on the island, hadn't the government and the corporation funding this all hadn't simply plopped them there . "I'll try."

She smiled, tucking a piece of black hair behind her ear. "Thank you. You have no idea how important this is to me."

He nodded, and was about to leave before an idea popped into his head. "Heather, is there a plan for when someone finally takes down a Night Fury?"

She raised an eyebrow suspiciously. "Of course, why?"

"Curiosity," he said with a shrug, "I mean, we've been trying for so long, there's gotta be something in place, right?"

Avoiding his eyes, she said, "It's the most dangerous dragon we know of, they'd confine it in maximum security, run some tests on its speed, shot limit, those sorts of things before they put it down. Winslet says that the Night Fury is far too dangerous to keep in captivity like the rest of them. The procedure we have calls for it to be euthanized and dissected to study within 24 hours of shooting it down." There was an uneasiness in her voice and in her mannerisms. She kept touching her hair, biting her lips. "It's wrong, to put it through that, at least the other dragons can live, even if it's in these walls."

"Is that what you wanted to talk to my dad about?"

"Did you shoot down a Night Fury?" She'd perked up again, a teasing tone in her voice.

I think so. "Not yet, but come on," he flexed his scrawny muscles, "a guy like this could take it down easy if they'd let me out of that shop every once in a while."

He should have told her, he should have gotten her and the other teens to follow him into the valley where the beast was waiting to be released, and yet, he couldn't. Pride, guilt, worry that he was wrong, somewhere between the three of those, he just couldn't do it.

"I'm sure you could," she said, laughing of course, "Bet that'd get her attention."

"Who's attention?"

She shook her head and laughed. "I sit beside you in Chem, you know exactly who."

Of course she knew who, the entire island knew who. "I—"

"Make sure you talk to him!" she called back, already running off.

* * *

Nobody ever went into the valley, especially after a storm. It had a tendency to flood in the summer and fall, and freezing rain would turn snow into a deathtrap, moreso than usual. Kids tended to play on the beaches or in the woods, if their parents let them get that far in lieu of the frequent dragon attacks.

And while no one would ever find him if the dragon somehow took him out, at least no one would have found the dragon first. Right?

"Some people lose an axe, some people lose a cellphone, but me? I manage to lose an entire dragon!"

He'd installed small GPS chips into the bolas, but it needed some heavy modifications before he used it again. The stupid thing was saying the dragon was right in front of him, but quite clearly, no dragon.

"Stupid piece of—"

His foot caught an uprooted tree, and sent him tumbling down, hitting every branch and rock and bump on the way down. He finally stopped at the foot of the hill, skid marks already etched into the ground where he'd fallen.

There it was. The skid marks led through a small gap in the rocks. He carefully crawled through, concealing himself the best he could in what was left of the vines and leaves hanging around him.

The dragon lay on it's side, the ropes binding his wings and limbs to his body. He'd been struggling, the dirt was loose around him, his jet black scales coated with the sand. He'd given up, lifeless even as his eye caught the boy approaching him. It was smaller than he'd imagined, stockier, most suited physically to it's fast speeds than it's incredible firepower.

"I did it…" he gasped, his breath hitching as he got closer. He'd taken down, he had captured the one beast no one on Berk, not Snotlout, not Astrid, not even his own father had been able to capture. His head had started to spin, his heart nearly falling out of his chest. He fumbled for the knife tucked into his belt as if it'd be any sort of defense, his shaking fingers struggling to grasp the hilt.

The Night Fury stared up at him, waiting for an inevitable fate.

"I'm… You're coming back to the lab dragon!" He announced in a tone of voice he'd only saved for imitations of this father, his knife clutched proudly in his hand. "I'm going to be a hero! I'm going to—"

_"Have it euthanized within 24 hours.__"_

"I'm going to gain the respect of my—"

There was a mixture of fear and acceptance in the creatures green eyes, he let his head fall to the side, utterly defeated, there was no way he could get out of those ropes, clearly he'd been trying for some time, and here was this little creature with a tiny little weapon who could easily end it all.

"My father… My village… My—"

_"It's wrong, at least the other dragons have a chance to live.__"_

He wasn't here to kill a beast. He wasn't here to make it suffer. Those were never his intentions, was he just going to somehow take it back to Berk, lead it to it's short day of torture and suffering before they killed it?

"No… No, this isn't right… This…" He took the knife and cut the ropes. No one on Berk would ever kill a dragon that couldn't defend itself, it was a cowards move, and taking a defenceless dragon, even a Night Fury, to it's death just as much so.

The dragon stared at him in shock before jumping to his feet. Hiccup fell against the rocks, pushed back the sheer force of the dragon forces his wings out to their full span. It starred him down, both front paws now on either side of him. The beast let out a loud cry, glared at the boy one last time, and as soon as he'd pounced before, took off, running in behind a set of trees and completely out of view.

**Okay, so this is the last chapter that'll follow so closely to the original story scenes, and now we can move on to the fun stuff. Thanks to all the darling reviewers as well as the followers and those who've added this to their favourites! I appreciate all of you more than you'll ever know, and I'm so, so glad that you take the time out of your lives to read and review. I'm hoping to have the next chapter up within a week, maybe sooner, I hope to hear from you all, and I can't wait to hear what you think.**

**(And sorry if you're seeing this twice, I went to fix a mistake and it wouldn't let me simply replace the chapter for some off reason.)**


	4. Chapter 4

The chief was still up when his son snuck back in sometime after midnight, he and his "war council," as the teens called them, gathered around the dining room table. Seats had been pulled out as if they'd once been used, but had since been abandoned to the edges of the room, the large councilmen and women all yelling, all slamming fist on the old oak table trying to reach some sort of agreement. Every light in the house was on, his dad's computer still humming in the background, clearly this entire meeting had been thrown together within minutes.

Hiccup carefully crawled up onto the stairs, resting his arm on a pile of his father's books. The stairs creaked under him, any shifting of his scrawny form might alert the adults. He leaned in just close enough to see everything, but still hiding in the shadows enough that no one would notice him unless they were specifically looking.

"The attacks have gone up in numbers just within the last year Stoick, and the Sanctuary isn't going to be able to hold any more dragons!"

"We're out of space on the island as it, we can't just capture and contain any more!"

"With the constant additions to the lab, Berk isn't going to be able to sustain itself much longer, we'll have to leave, go live on the mainland!"

"We are NOT going to the mainland, without us on Berk the dragons will take over the eastern seaboard. They'll travel farther south, and the last thing we need is any TV cameras catching as much as a Terror!"

"Then we'll have te kill them!"

All eyes went to the man that suggested this, Anund Svenson. He was a hulking man, and while not larger or stronger, could certainly give Stoick a good fight while he could still stand. He never shaved his unruly beard, rarely washed himself or his well-worn clothes, and always partook in the defending from dragon attacks, whether he was wanted or not. While as uncivil as they come, he insisted as an adult of the village to be in on these council meetings.

"We aren't killing them Anund, we're the last line of defense, but we're not savages," Gerda Hofferson interrupted, "We've been keeping the populations under control, we've got enough space on the smaller islands to build, we've got enough young vikings to help sustain the fight until we can—"

Anund smirked, leaning over to look down on the feisty woman. "'til we can what, Gerda? Yer little girlie's a fighter, I'll giver that, but ye think her and them other little runts are gonna be able ta keep this up f'rever? They're good, they ain't that good."

"That's enough!" Stoick's voice boomed throughout the house, shaking the walls and echoing through the rooms. "We are not killing—"

"Why not!" the stupid man egged on, "yer wife ain't here ta stop ya! Just 'cuz Val wanted ta save them stupid things don't mean we should be stuck w'fum now that's sheez gone!"

The books under Hiccup had gave way, flying down into the crowd of council members.

"Hiccup, what are you still doing up?"

Clearly he hadn't noticed that he son was just getting back.

Ilsa Ingerman interrupted, "Hiccup, Sweetie I'm goin' ta go call my little Fishlegs, you can go stay there for the night," she said sweetly, offering the fallen books to the boy, "can't have our future chief strugglin' in school b'cause he can't get any sleep with us yappin' out here."

He hadn't much choice in the matter, she'd practically took him by the hand and forced him to go pack. It hadn't been the first school night he'd been sent off to the Ingerman's, it wouldn't be the last. Beat going to the Jorgenson's, where Snotlout would either taunt him or interrogate him, the Thorstons, where the twins constantly put his life in danger, when not trying to put the other and even the Hofferson's, where Astrid would lock herself in the basement and train until long after he fell asleep.

At least Fishlegs would acknowledge him. When Hiccup's old jeep pulled into the yard, he was still up on his computer cataloging the catches of the day for the council, should they ever actually look at it, getting bit by bit information from the scientist who were stuck quickly testing the feral dragons before training them for life in captivity.

_There's no one on Berk more eager to sit and learn than Fishlegs. He's seen every record on ever dragon we've ever found, he's read every book three times over, he's memorized every breeds stats and shot limit, he's a walking wikipedia page. Now only if you could get him out with the dragons. _

"What were they saying?" the larger boy asked inquisitively, briefly looking away from his computer. They should have been asleep hours ago, but Ilsa and her husband still hadn't come home from the meeting, and it wasn't like they wouldn't just sleep in school anyway.

"Well the village nutcase wants to start killing the dragons, all of them."

"But he's already killed dozens on his own, why does he care?"

"Who knows. Mildew's been feeding him reasons to kill the dragons for years. Wouldn't think he'd be that upset to the lab going up in his cabbage patches."

He could have told Fishlegs about everything, from the fights he'd overheard to the Night Fury. In fact, he'd debated it on the way over, but alas, the boy couldn't keep a secret if his life depended on it. This was Fishlegs Ingerman, the boy who's inability to keep a secret had singlehandedly ruined the senior prank of 2012.

He instead chose to keep the boy distracted on other things, video games, school work, the new Nightmare they'd brought in, his lazy old pug that waddled like a fat pig, whatever it took to keep him away from any secret subject.

"Did you hear what happened to Astrid and Ruffnut last weekend?" Fishlegs asked, looking away from his computer. "Mr. Hofferson sent them out into the woods to load the truck up with firewood and apparently there was a dragon making a nest out of them!"

"On it's own? But there weren't any attacks last week."

Dragons never came to Berk alone, they never came during the day, and they never stayed more than a few minutes after they hauled in their catch. There's no way it would be there on it's own in broad daylight.

"That's what Ruffnut said."

"Ruffnut lies all the time."

"But Astrid doesn't."

That she didn't. Astrid was honest and brutal to a fault, lying when she had to, but he'd never seen her in any case just make up stories.

The claw marks he'd seen on the side of her dad's pickup at school the next morning just proved the theory. The gashes weren't aggressive in any manner, it didn't appear that the dragons as trying to attack the car. Instead, they were thin, barely scratching the paint, almost like the claw marks Fishlegs's pug would leave on his bedroom door when she was locked out.

They were definitely that of a dragon, there hadn't been bears on Berk in decades, they'd been a staple food for dragons to the point of extinction. The biggest animals were domesticated, they never hid in the woods or the lumber yards. The dragons were most definitely coming into Berk all on their own, for whatever reason. First the one the girls found…

And then the night fury.

**I'm sorry this update took so long, I've been in the middle of a move and starting back to work and haven't had the time to sit and write like I'd like to be able to do. I want to go back and improve the previous chapters, but for now, I hope you enjoy the update! I'm going to try and update by Saturday at the latest~**


	5. Chapter 5

He'd woken up to the sound of papers being dropped on his desk. First period hadn't started, but he couldn't remember falling asleep. He sat at the back of the room, where normally no one would notice him, or pay any sort of attention, as he caught up on sleep. He'd had the top mark on the class all term, at this point passing wasn't a concern.

"Wasszis?" he grumbled sleepily as he sat up, gathering the papers in his hands.

It'd been Heather to drop them. She leaned against his desk, looming over until her looked up.

"The Night Fury Protocol. I told my father that I needed it for a research assignment. He doesn't need to know the truth. I don't know what you wanted to know about this for, but..." She took the seat and front of him, flipping it around to still face his desks. "Since you _are _doing such a big favour for me and all."

He blinked. "Favour?" he mumbled, before realization hit him. "Right… My Dad… The council was there most of the night, I couldn't get a word in before they booted me out of the house." He sat up, rubbing at his eyes. "Tonight, I promise."

"It's really, really important you know," she reminded for the umpteenth time.

"I know, I know, tonight."

"Mr. Haddock," his homeroom teacher's voice echoed across the room, "If you're so interested in what Miss Doyle has to say, perhaps you two could stay in detention for lunch to finish? Hate to not give you your designated time or anything."

Mrs. Trebridge, the crabby old science teacher, had never been fond of Hiccup in any way, shape, or form. Once he'd set her garden on fire, something to do with a magnifying glass, a few ants walking in a path from Astrid's to hers, and in his defense, the entire thing had been Snotlout Jorgensen's fault, not that Trebridge cared either way, now that her ugly wilted garden had done up in smoke like tried up grass.

Heather quietly spun her seat around to face the front, carelessly rolling her pen back and forth across her desk, as if she'd never done anything wrong.

And Hiccup, much to his classmate's distain, had to keep talking. He could hear their groans and see the obvious eye rolls as he retorted back with something along the lines of "Well you know me ma'am, can't wait for class to start talking about the joys of learning."

Trebridge chose to ignore him, going on to do her roll call instead. Tired students grumbled effortless "here"s as they heard their names come up, already staring at the clock, others, particularly the keeners, proudly announced their present, sitting straight in their seats as if they'd been up for hours.

And in some cases, particularly Astrid Hofferson's, this was probably the case. She'd organized her desk and her notebooks organized to perfection. She was one of the top marks in

Mrs. Trebridge started her class the same way all the teachers did. Talking about the last night's attack.

"And the condition of Mr. Jorgansen's Monsterous Nightmare?"

"It was limping, it was hurt, there's no honour in taking down an injured dragon." It was Astrid to first speak up. She had crossed her arms over her chest, and leaned back in her seat.

"He was fine! Just looking for attention, stupid beast," Snotlout snapped defensively.

"It's not a kid," another student, the class slacker insisted from the back corner of the room, "they're not smart enough to act up like that."

"Really though!" another girl, a ginger haired kid who's name he could never remember, piped in, "Dragon's have two modes, killing, and eating, and the occasional times when they do both. They don't have fun or sit around. Hey Labgirl, it's true right."

Heather nodded. "We've never observed it in captivity, generally the dragons have kept to the back of their enclosures until given food. Other than a rare few, we haven't seen them make any particular grabs for attention from the workers."

The ginger girl smirked proudly. "I've got 'nother question Mrs. T. What's the chances of a dragon sticking around Berk? Like ya know, just hanging out in say, the woods or something?"

He could hear Astrid hiss from across the classroom. "Drop it Kendall."

"A dragon would never stay around Berk without it's companions, they're creatures of a pack, they are rarely seen alone." Mrs. Trebridge had said flatly. "Why do you ask?"

Kendall jabbed her finger at the girl next to her, "Because Miss Ruffnut here's a liar, she said earlier that there was a dragon out there in the woods behind McCalisters, but if a dragon won't stay on it's own, then her story's made up, right?"

"Is not!" Ruffnut roughly slapped the other girls hand away. "We saw it, Astrid was there."

"She's right, it just sat there, staring at us, but the second we got too close, it took off." Astrid explained.

"See, would Astrid lie?"

"Yes."

"Shut it Kendall."

"Girls!" Mrs. Trebridge called over the three yelling voices, "Girls! Behave yourselves or you'll all spend next week in detention!"

That had shut the three up just long enough for the teacher to start her lecture, before Kendall whispered under her breathe, "I knew Thorston was a liar."

She'd left school that day with a black eye, no one had asked where it'd come from or who.

* * *

The idea was stupid, going back into the woods where he had found the beast. He knew that. He knew it'd be gone, it'd flown off back to it's own island, it'd come back just long enough for it's raid, and then leave just as quickly again.

That's what dragons did. They came, they destroyed, they left.

"Then why were you still here?" he asked the empty forest,hoping the words might find it's unlikely occupant.

The forest was as vast and empty as it had been the night before, the only signs of life were the seagulls passing over from the beach towards the town, and the small animals that scurried underneath him.

Axe marks covered a series of trees on his way into the woods, Astrid had been there, presumably that morning before school as per usual, and as she hadn't gone and told anyone in the village, he could only assume she hadn't seen the wreckage. Rumors of whatever had crashed would have spread just as quickly as the last dragon found in the woods.

Astrid, the faithful daughter of the chief of police, would never have let it slide and kept her discovery to herself, it wasn't what was best for the island, she'd convince herself.

He'd been certain for quite sometime he was alone. The farther in he went the less disturbance there was, the only things big enough to make imprints in the ground were him and the dragon that had without a doubt flown off.

Or, so he'd thought.

Hanging from a tree near the far end wall was the night fury. The fearsome beast he'd seen just the night before however had been replaced by this innocent, sleeping dragon. It's tail wrapped around the sturdiest branch, like a possum, it's eyes closed peacefully, unaware of it's observer.

Slowly he began to inch closer to the sleeping dragon, step by step until he was within ten feet. Before it'd been trapped, but now, it could wake up and attack him at any moment.

_Crack._

He jumped, completely turning around only to find the same empty air. When he turned around, like it had never been there at all, the night fury was once again gone.

_But why are you still here?_

**_I'm sorry these updates are so far apart lately, I just really haven't had the time to sit and write, and when I do I've been having a hard time getting the chapters out. My friend who I usually bounce ideas with and help edit one anthers stories has been just as busy, and everything's just added up and all. I'm making a pact to have a new chapter out every saturday from now on, hopefully a schedule will keep me going. I've started working on "Watchtowers" as a full story instead of a oneshot, I'm not sure what story will take up more of my thought processes, but I hope to update both once a week~_**

**_Thanks for reading, hope to hear from you and see you all next Saturday!_**


	6. Chapter 6

"I'm telling ya, Ruff saw the dragon out this way! It'll probably come back."

"What if we need her here as bait? Hey! Maybe it'll eat her next time, that'd be awesome."

Hiccup could hear the voices echoing overhead, the head of it's speaker just barely peaking out over the tops of the stones and bushes that concealed the hidden cove.

"Idiot, she said it was by the logs, which are on the other side of the woods. What are we going

The apparent leader, Snotlout Jorganson, lead his mismatched group of teenaged and prepubescent hooligans through the woods, yelling and jeering over one another, fighting over directions and rumours that they'd heard over the past few days.

_Berk's residents are interesting, if anything. Particularly it's younger generations. They'll search out anything if it means there might be some glory, some renown, or even some attention to be gained, no matter who they have to go through or what they might have to do._

Hiccup quickly ducked behind a bush, the last thing he needed at this point was Snotlout, or any of his peers really, finding out he was there, just inches away from where a dragon had been, a dragon he'd freed instead of turning in like a loyal Berkian.

That was something he'd never hear the end of.

The idea to hide was apparently a mutual one. The night fury had made it's way behind some taller shrubs and trees. It's front paws and it's chin rested on a higher branch as it watched the young humans bicker and fight over directions. He didn't appear angry, not like he had the day before. No, in fact, he seemed almost, well, curious. The threatening eyes had softened, his irises big, and his nose twitching as if it was trying to catch his scent. It's tail halfheartedly wrapped around it's feet.

Did all night furies have such odd tailfins? Only one side of the tail had a fin attached, very much unlike other creatures similar to it. He looked closer only to realize what was wrong with it. No, it wasn't odd, it was torn. Her could see where the injury had yet to feel, the thin red line on the edges where it had originally had been.

Had he been the one to tear it off with his bola?

He'd tried to sneak closer to get a better look, but in attempt to move, he'd rustled the bushes just enough to catch the dragon's attention, sending it racing off to a new hiding spot.

It climbed up into a tree just barely strong enough to support it's weight, it's tail dangling beneath. It's attention was no longer focused on him now instead, green eyes locked on the scrawny young boy who could have taken it's life yesterday and didn't.

Maybe he was wondering why as well?

The voices disappeared over the span of a few minutes, Ruffnut had shown up just in time to show them where she'd seen her dragon. The sounds of shouting where replaced by the wind and the crickets, just as it had been before.

Now it was jet him and the dragon, each moving around the cove trying to get a better view of the other, while still staying hidden. The dragon would climb on to higher, sturdier branches until he couldn't go any further, and then would dive down once again, keeping low to the ground, his snout peaking out behind the foliage he'd chosen to hide behind.

"You had a chance to kill me yesterday," Hiccup whispered into the open air, "why did you?"

The dragon looked up curiously, it's head coming over the bushes, what one would assume where ears sticking up. He wouldn't have understood the words, but for whatever reason, they perked his interest.

Hiccup took this opportunity to move closer, slowly step by step emerging from his own hiding spot, his hand outstretched as a a peace offering.

_What am I doing?_

Despite question his own action, he continued to move foreward, turning away, only to hear the beast huff and take off before he could come any closer.

* * *

"I'll take the ferry into the mainland on Saturday and get some a new camera. Maybe a few backups, just in case. There's a pawn shop in Moncton that usually has some."

"How does a pawn shop get security cameras?" Fishlegs, who'd been stuck on repair duty alongside hiccup that night, asked suspiciously.

"Never asked. Gobber says as long as they run, he can hook them up, I never asked anymore than I needed to."

Whatever had taken off the camera had certainly done a number to it. In one swift bite it had completely taken the device, a large chunk of the tree it had once been attached to was gouged out, the grooves from the dragon's teeth sharp and defined.

"What do you think did this?"

Fishlegs stared at it a little longer before flipping open his textbook to compare, holding the pages up next to the tree when he thought he had a match.

He'd at first assumed it was a nightmare, but the bite was from that of a dragon with shorter, wider teeth, and a jaw shaped to match. Too small for a gronkle, too big for a terror, "It doesn't really didn't fit any of the dragons we've ever had a chance to study."

But no one had ever studied the night fury. If he snuck back tomorrow after school again, maybe he could bring it some food, that way he'd have a chance to get closer, see if it was the beast the took out the most important camera.

The plan was crazy of course. Where the dragons smart enough to know, or at least have an idea, what a camera did? Even if the bite matched up, what good would figuring it out do? He couldn't just scold a dragon for breaking something like he could a well behaved child who'd made a mistake. They were dragons, destructive and unobservant, unconcerned with those around them and the actions of others.

Or so he'd thought. Clearly, the dragon in the cove was just as interested in watching them, as they had all been watching him.

**I'm so sorry this is two days late, I had some internet troubles and I wasn't able to get it online in time, and then ended up working all day yesterday and didn't have time to upload it. I have the next chapter 80% done though, so hopefully I'll upload that early Saturday morning. **

**Thanks for your patience and your lovely reviews, I love to hear what you think of the story and what you think is going to happen. Kitty.0, thanks for all your reviews ever chapter so far, I really appreciate it and your patience for my delays, and I hope the next few chapters will answer any questions anyone has~ Hope you enjoyed!**


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